


Shawarma, After?

by Revenant



Series: as yet unnamed [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mild Language, Modern Bucky Barnes, Pre-Slash, Protective Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 10:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: The Battle of New York is over but the Avengers are all missing and Bucky Barnes has a mission, dammit!





	Shawarma, After?

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I don't know what this is. I'm working on a shrunkyclunk fic where modern Bucky works for SHIELD but still becomes the Winter Soldier, and somewhere after routing Hydra out of SHIELD they find Steve in the ice. Natasha assigns Bucky to 'protect' Captain America ... and somehow I sat down and my muse just ... did this so ...

There are bodies all over the road, upturned cars and piles of rubble from buildings that have been blasted out. Bucky can smell ash and ozone in the air, a strange electric odour that makes his head ache but he keeps running. Searching.

"Hey!" he shouts, zeroing in on a cop who's shepherding a bunch of dazed civilians along the sidewalk. "Hey! You seen a guy around here? Tall, with these stupid-broad shoulders and bright red 'fuck me' boots? He'd have a giant Frisbee with him."

The cop stares at him. "Do you mean … Captain America?"

"Yeah! Have you seen that fucker anywhere?"

"Uh, no?"

"Shit," and Bucky takes off running again. 

There's fewer civilians lying bloody in the street this way and more aliens: he's going in the right direction. The aliens show clear signs of violence, some still smoldering from what Bucky can only assume was a bolt from Thor – however that works. Others have bullet wounds, are seeping some dark viscous liquid onto the asphalt.

One has a slash across the chest, so deep it's almost been cleaved in two.

Okay, so it's useful but it doesn't change the fact that Captain America went into a battle against aliens armed with his stupid Frisbee and no gun. Someone decided it made them uncomfortable to see their national icon with a rifle: what kind of an example are we giving our kids? Or, and this is probably more likely, Steve's still being stubborn about what constitutes an enemy.

_"Sometimes the bad guys aren't who you think, Buck."_

_"The bad guy is whoever's shooting at you, punk!"_

They've had the argument a hundred times already.

There's more police outside Grand Central. "Have you seen Steve?" Bucky asks. They stare at him, pale-faced and scared. Bucky rips the goggles from his eyes, yanks the mask down from his mouth. "Captain America! Have you seen Captain Fucking America anywhere?"

He takes off running again.

The terrain of the battlefield tells a story, he runs passed the epicenter and though he sees military personnel helping civilians climb over rubble, and ambulances with their lights spinning, he doesn't see the Black Widow, or Iron Man. 

He tries the radio again but there's nothing but static.

"Do you know if any of the Avengers were taken to hospital?" Bucky asks a medic.

"The who?"

"The –" he huffs. "The people who fought in this epic clusterfuck!"

The medic blinks. "You mean the army?"

"No, I don't mean the fucking army. Geezus! I mean the idiots in tight clothing with the completely stupid weapons like dinner plates and hammers!"

"Sir, maybe you should take a seat. You might have a concussion—"

"It was all over the news! Where the hell were you?"

The medic jerks a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the ambulance behind her. "At work. We don't have TV in there."

It feels like he runs all over downtown Manhattan but eventually Bucky comes to an immediate and abrupt halt in front of a half-destroyed restaurant. The window glass is shattered, crunching under his boots on the sidewalk; it's all over the brown tiled floor inside as well. Someone's got a mop and bucket and is trying to make the best of it. The fluorescent sign still hangs pristine in the broken window, hot pink and glowing: 'OPEN'.

What's caught Bucky's attention are the six assholes sitting at a table crammed full with food wrappers and condiments. "Mother fucker!" he snaps, and receives six listless stares for his trouble.

"Uh oh. Momma bear, incoming at three o'clock," Stark mutters.

Barton glances over. "That's nine o'clock."

"I've been looking for you everywhere! You're telling me you've been here this whole time? Eating … what is this? Is this shawarma?"

Steve blinks at the little basket in front of him and shrugs. Even that small movement looks like it took all his energy. "It's not bad." Bucky's pretty sure the basket in front of Steve is untouched. The idiot still has his gloves on for god's sake.

He looks like hell: there's dirt smudged on his face and streaking his hair, and when he leans back Bucky sees, "Is that blood? Were you shot?" He clambers through the empty shop window, careful to avoid the broken glass. The butt of his rifle catches on the gumball machines but he jostles it free absently.

"Maybe," Steve answers, grudging as Bucky tries to get a better view of the red stain on the front of his uniform. "Once or twice."

"Jesus Christ," Bucky hisses.

"Sit down before you fall down." Stark kicks idly at a toppled chair and then either decides it's too much effort or realizes Bucky has no intention of sitting down on the opposite side of the table. 

Bucky looks everyone over with a critical eye. "Did none of you stop by medical?"

Thor frowns, vaguely guilty. "We were hungry?"

"You were hungry," Bucky parrots numbly. Natasha prods him towards a chair between her and Steve. "He's been shot," he jerks his chin at Steve. "Stark looks like he's been run through a wood chipper and everyone else is about ready to pass out in … fuck, this is shawarma, isn't it," he says, frowning as he chews the morsel he's stolen from Natasha's plastic basket. She swats at him listlessly, he swats her back and glares. "But no one thought to maybe visit a doctor."

"Bucky, we're okay," Steve assures him.

"No offense, pal, but you've told me that before and you were lying through your teeth then, too." The term 'critical blood loss' comes to mind, in fact. Captain America might heal fast but he's not invincible. Blood loss is still blood loss and who knows how these alien guns even work.

"Shhhh," Barton says, half-pleading. "So loud."

Bucky's pretty sure Barton's got his hearing aids turned off, because he has a tendency to do that after missions when the S.H.I.E.L.D reps start getting that look that means it's time for a debrief. He signs 'get bent' just to make a point. Clint holds up a middle finger and then collapses into a basket of French fries.

"We're sorry if we worried you," Banner tells him. "We handed Loki over to S.H.I.E.L.D. I guess we just assumed they'd let the other field agents know the situation was resolved."

Bucky slumps. "My radio got busted."

"At ease, Soldier," Natasha tells him in Russian. "All is well."

Steve nudges the plastic basket of shawarma over and Bucky stares at it for a second and then, reluctantly, steals a fry. "It's team bonding," Steve tells him, quiet.

"Fuck team bonding. We're going to medical as soon as you eat some of this." Steve burns through a lot of calories when he's fighting: super soldier metabolism and all. Food actually helps healing sometimes, and since the idiot hasn't collapsed yet he's probably not in any immediate danger.

Steve reaches for the basket and Bucky yanks it away suddenly. "Take your gloves off. Were you raised in a barn?"

"This is amazing," Stark says, and when Bucky glances over he looks like he's having the time of his life – and also a little bit like he wants to climb under a mountain of blankets and not move for a whole week. "Do you take this show on the road?"

Bucky elects, magnanimously, to ignores him, and settles for collecting Steve's abandoned gloves and dumping them in a pile beside his rifle and the shield. "Thanks, Buck," Steve says, and then lethargically starts poking at his food.

Bucky catches Natasha's considering look and glares at her, hoping that she'll keep her mouth shut.

No such luck. "You're taking this assignment very seriously."

"No Russian at the table," Stark tells them, and then catches himself. "No foreign languages at the table. We're sitting here eating shawarma in the spirit of togetherness."

"Indeed!" Thor agrees. He's the only one of them who still seems to have any energy left. "Feasting to celebrate a hard-won victory!"

"Mission parameters were intentionally vague," Bucky tells her, in Russian because fuck Tony Stark that's why.

She smiles, knowing and pleased and Bucky wishes he had a useful super-power like invisibility, or being able to turn into a liquid and slowly seep out of this dank and depressing restaurant. He doesn't though, he's got a metal arm, a super metabolism and, as Sam frequently informs him, an atrocious attitude problem.

"Alright, team bonding's over. Come on, Cap. Time to go." Steve doesn't say anything and Bucky glances over: he's fallen asleep with his head perched on a fist. "For fuck's sake, Steve!" 

"What? Sorry!"

Bucky looks expectantly at the rest of the table. "Anyone else want a ride?"

"Do you … have a car?" Banner asks, cautious.

"There's one across the street that hasn't exploded. I was gonna hot-wire it." Steve frowns and Bucky rolls his eyes, "I'll return it later."

Natasha stands from the table. "Sure. You going back to HQ?"

"Drop me by the Tower," Stark tells him. "I need a shower. And probably I should assess the damage. Hey!" he snaps his fingers at the guy staring sullenly at the broken mini-fridge behind the counter. "Put this on my tab, okay?"

Banner stares. "I thought you said you never had shawarma?"

"I haven't," Stark says, bristling. "What, you think I carry my credit card with me everywhere?"

Bucky sighs. "You're paying me back," and marches over to the counter, pulling some cash from one of the industrial pockets of his uniform jacket. 

"Are we leaving?" Thor asks because everyone's started to pull themselves up from the table. "Do you think they will make some of this to go?" he grabs a basket off the table, empties two others into it and tucks it under his arm.

"Anyone who's not in the car by the time I hot wire it can walk home!" Bucky calls over his shoulder as he strides through the broken window of the restaurant, dragging Steve along with him. 

"The Winter fucking Soldier, ladies and gentlemen," Barton mutters.

"Right?" Stark says. "Remember when he used to grunt once for 'yes' and twice for 'no'? What happened to that guy?"

The engine of the beat-up minivan kicks to life and Bucky rolls the window down, "Three – two—"

"Wait, wait!" Stark shouts, and half-jogs across the street. Bucky lurches the van forward a few times just to be dick. "Alright, Momma Bear. Take us home."

"Stop fucking calling me that, Stark."

Steve reaches over and pats his knee, reassuring. "Thanks, Buck. Sorry if I worried you."

"Who's worried? If you get yourself killed S.H.I.E.L.D'll cancel my Christmas bonus." He pretends he can't see Natasha smirking at him knowingly in the rear-view mirror.

He really wishes she'd stop doing that. This is all her fault, anyway.


End file.
